Ray Charles，a black singer and pianist of the USA．He had won 12 Grammy Awards （格莱美奖） and performed at 10，000 concerts around the world．Many musicians called him simply"the Genius"（天才）．

    Ray Charles was born into a poor family，without a father．When he was 5 years old，his younger brother died. And around the same time，Charles started to lose his sight．By the age of 7 he was completely blind．He had already been learning the piano for a year. And when he went blind，his mother knew this would be the only way he would make any money in the future．All his life，Charles remembered her saying："Do it right，or don't do it at all．"

    Later he went to a school for blind and deaf children．There the teachers also encouraged him to study music．Sadly，while he was still at school，his mother died．He left school and in the early 1950s Charles organized a group of players．He sang，played the piano and wrote music．

    He made many classical CDs with famous artists such as Elton John and the Beatles．

    In 2003 a film of his life Ray was made．The part of Charles was played by a younger actor and musician called Jamie Foxx．The film director brought Foxx to meet Charles．After they had been playing together for two hours，Charles，then aged 73，jumped up and said："He's the one…he can do it．"A year later Charles died aged 74．The film of his life has been as popular as his songs and means that the memory of Charles' music will live on．

Today is my birthday. I'm 16 years old. I'm not a little boy running in the hallways(走廊) at school. I wanted to know who would 1 my birthday. I really wanted to have a birthday cake because I wanted to 2 .But I got up and found my 3 didn't do anything. My father was 4 a newspaper on the sofa. My mother went out to buy some things for lunch. I5 my computer and went online. There were just some people online. No one said 6 about my birthday. After thirty7 , my mum came back. She went into the8 and cooked. It seemed that the world forgot me and I wasn't9 at all. I said to myself, "You are 16 now. You're not a child. Forget your birthday."

But when I was doing my maths homework, my 10 came to me and asked, "What kind of cake do you want?"11 a surprise(惊喜)! At that time, I didn't know12 to say. I chose a chocolate cake in the end. I knew that the whole world may forget me,13 my mum wouldn't.

Also, when I went online in the evening, I talked to my friends. Many of them said happy birthday to14 . And my phone was full of text messages(短信)saying"Happy birthday".

It was a(n) 15 day after all!

It's reported that India is facing one of the worst water shortage in its history. 26-year-old Ramveer Tanwar knew a thing or two about it years ago. The young man comes from a small village in Greater Noida in India. A trip back to his hometown has totally changed his life.

During the trip, Ramveer noticed that many lakes where he used to swim and play with his friends dried up because of pollution. What's worse, many water bodies were disappearing fast. Instead of waiting for the government to take action, the young man decided to take matters into his own hands as soon as possible.

In the beginning, Ramveer went from door to door or held meetings to educate local villagers on the importance of water protection. He believed by teaching people the situation could get better. But later he found that was not enough. So besides talking to villagers, he teamed up with them and began to bring lifeless lakes back to life in the area. "We tried making a lake live again by removing all its waste. Many of the villagers came to help. Some of them worked with us while others offered us tools (工具) and equipment," Ramveer said. They even succeeded in getting support from the forest department, which provided them with plants to be planted around the lakes. ,

Since 2014, with the help of the volunteers, Ramveer has brought about twelve dead lakes back to life. Of course, he doesn5t plan to stop there. Today he is using his power and influence to call on more people to join him.